Killing Mind: An addictive and nail-biting crime thriller (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller Book 12)

by Angela Marsons

  She lifted the lid on her lunchbox to check that nothing appealing had found its way in. No, it was as she’d left it when she covered it over: two cracker breads covered thinly with a low fat spread, a tomato, an apple and banana. She closed the lid again wishing she liked healthy food more.

  Devon told her every night that she didn’t want Stacey to lose weight and Stacey explained every time that she was doing it for herself. And it was easy for Devon to say that with her five foot ten frame that somehow repelled excess fat. The woman’s weight hadn’t budged in the eighteen months they’d been together. Naturally athletic, her body burned calories like a furnace. If Stacey wasn’t so ridiculously, emphatically, deliriously in love with the woman, she’d hate her bloody guts.

  The extra stone she carried had been reconciled in her mind by the constant thought of ‘I’ll lose that when…’

  She’d never been clear when the ‘when’ was going to be but it had always been for something that mattered. And what could be more important than her wedding day?

  It was the photos that stuck in her mind. Those photos would hopefully be shown to children and grandchildren, and she really didn’t want to look at them in years to come hating the way she looked on the most important day of her life.

  No, she had to stick with it, she thought, shifting her attention from the reserved chocolate muffin to twenty-year-old Tyler Short.

  His social media didn’t show the outgoing personality of Samantha. His friends were not in the triple figures, so he was not a collector: how Stacey viewed people who amassed hundreds of Facebook friends that they’d never met. But what she couldn’t find were any family members: brothers, sisters, cousins.

  There were not many photos of him. One when he’d passed his driving test and a few with a small group of friends. She skipped over those and went to his posts. There were a couple of shared photos of cars and funny memes that seemed to be Star Wars related, but what really got her attention were the thoughtful posts. Mainly about mothers and posted around Mother’s Day each year. His oldest photo was a selfie taken with his grandmother and a birthday cake. Just the two of them.

  Stacey moved away from his social media with a feeling that she’d missed something but she had to focus on his past, his background, which she wasn’t going to get from social media.

  Ten minutes later she’d written a half page of notes on Tyler Short and it didn’t make for particularly happy reading.

  Born to a troubled mother ridden with bouts of depression, he’d spent much of his childhood with his maternal grandmother. Stacey had found no evidence of a father. His mother had committed suicide when he was twelve years old, at which point he lived with his grandmother full time. From what Stacey could gather he had given her no trouble and had worked hard enough to get himself into college to study to be a mechanic.

  The merging of the hard facts and his social media left Stacey with an overwhelming feeling of sadness. The boy had suffered uncertainty in his younger years with little to no stability and had lost his mother before he’d even reached his teens.

  She went back to his Facebook page and in particular to that one photo with his nan.

  It really had been just the two of them. She had been the only constant throughout his life and when he’d lost her he really had lost everything.

  Her gaze moved across to the most recent photo of Tyler amongst a group of friends and realised what it was that she’d missed the first time.

  Her eyes rested on the face of someone she already knew.

  Twenty-Nine

  It was almost four when Bryant drove them through the cordon at the gates to Himley Park. Small groups of employees littered the grass on the side of the road as they approached the car park at the lake.

  Inspector Plant was being talked at by a sturdy woman with her arms folded across her chest. Kim looked away before either of them could catch her eye. She couldn’t answer the question that was most probably on the woman’s lips. She didn’t know when the site could be handed back, and the fact she’d been recalled wasn’t good news for anyone.

  She looked up as she got out of the car. No drones; the boy had listened.

  The tent was still in place, even though the body had been removed. Kim headed straight for it, guessing that was where Mitch would be collecting his samples.

  Before she stepped inside she glanced around the lake. In all she was guessing there were fourteen or fifteen white suits around the perimeter. Some were staggered in singles, but there were two clutches of three or four. One clutch about twenty feet west of the tent and the other bunch opposite the tent on the other side of the lake.

  ‘Hey, Mitch,’ she said, entering the tent.

  ‘Inspector, sorry for having to call you back, and thank you for being prompt.’

  Oh, the forensic tech was a breath of fresh air compared to the pathologist. He had manners. He used nice words like sorry and thank you.

  ‘What you got?’ she asked, approaching the small pop-up table that was serving as a work space. Clear storage boxes were open beneath it. She guessed they contained samples of soil and vegetation.

  He reached for a clear bag from the box on the left. She recognised it as the matching trainer from the body of Tyler Short.

  She took the bag and turned it. The shoe was more muddy than wet.

  ‘Found just along the edge there,’ he said, nodding towards the first group of techs she’d seen.

  ‘Dislodged during a struggle before he went into the water?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Buried down with only the laces showing.’

  ‘Good spot,’ she acknowledged.

  He smiled. ‘We don’t have a plant to hand around but I’ll be sure to tell the guy you said so.’

  ‘We don’t have it any more,’ Kim said, glancing at her colleague, who whistled and looked away. ‘It died.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ Mitch said, placing the shoe into the clear box.

  The ironies of police work never failed to amaze her. They were standing at the site where a young man had lost his life and she was being offered condolences for a plant.

  ‘So, what…’

  ‘There’s something…’

  They said together. Of course there was something else. There were two groups of techs stationed around the lake. She rarely got called back to a crime scene for an item the forensic team expected to find.

  He reached under the table into the right-hand box and took out an evidence bag similar in size to the other.

  ‘Found over the other side of the lake. Maybe something. Maybe nothing but I thought you’d like to know.’

  Kim took the bag from him and turned it.

  Another shoe.

  But this one had belonged to a woman.

  Thirty

  Penn removed the gown and mask when instructed to do so by Keats.

  He had remained silent as the pathologist had worked steadily and methodically through the process of examining the body externally before turning his attention to the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, intestines, blood vessels and small glands. As he’d worked Penn had been surprised at the respect and reverence he had shown the body of Tyler Short. Every organ that was measured and weighed had been treated with the care of a newborn baby, as though he wished to cause no further damage. His only surprise had been when Keats had removed the stomach contents with a ladle.

  Keats had not spoken during the process except into his Dictaphone as he worked, seemingly forgetting that Penn was in the room.

  ‘So, we have established that this poor fellow didn’t die from the laceration to his throat. Your killer cut him and then forced his head underwater so that he drowned.’

  Penn assumed this was Keats’s way of giving him permission to speak.

  ‘Wanted to make sure?’

  ‘Your question to answer. not mine,’ Keats said, pulling the sheet over the head of Tyler Short.

  ‘Is that to help establish time of death?’ Penn aske
d, as Keats took the contents he’d ladled out of the stomach over to the microscope.

  Keats shook his head. ‘In this case the placement of the contents within the digestive system will assist with knowing the time between his last meal and death, which I would estimate to be approximately three hours, but it’s not going to help establish when he died, which I would estimate to have been four to six weeks.’

  ‘You can’t…’

  ‘No,’ Keats said. ‘I can’t be more specific than that, and your boss will get the same answer when she reads my full report.’

  Penn hid his smile. They both knew she’d push for a more specific time frame than that.

  Penn balled up his paper outfit and placed the items into the bin. ‘Okay, I’ll…’

  ‘Did I say we were done?’ Keats asked, without turning.

  ‘Not sure what else…’

  ‘This,’ Keats said, motioning for him to look through the microscope.

  ‘Okay,’ Penn said, not really sure what he was looking at.

  Keats pulled up a photo on his computer screen.

  Penn rolled his eyes. ‘Why didn’t you just show me the bigger picture first? I still don’t know what I’m looking at but…’

  ‘What you’re looking at is the stomach contents of…’

  ‘Tyler Short. I know that,’ Penn said, pleased he’d had at least one chance to interrupt the pathologist.

  Keats peered at him over the gold-rimmed glasses. ‘These are the stomach contents of Samantha Brown. Exactly the same.’

  Penn looked into the microscope and back to the screen.

  ‘So, if your boss needs any further proof that these cases are linked you can tell her that Tyler Short’s last meal was also nothing more than rice and beans.’

  Thirty-One

  Callum Towney was not what Kim expected.

  The photo Stacey had sent showed a reasonably good-looking lad with a healthy tan and a head full of untidy blonde hair. The boy collecting trolleys on Asda car park had shaved his head and collected a couple of piercings to his face.

  ‘Got a minute?’ she asked, showing her ID.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, without changing expression.

  In Kim’s experience the majority of people underwent some kind of emotional change, however subtle, when approached by a police officer. Often she saw fear, anticipation, guilt, irritation, superiority but she rarely saw no change at all. For her that indicated a person who hadn’t ever done a thing wrong or someone who didn’t care if they got caught. It remained to be seen into which category Callum Towney fell.

  ‘We’d like to talk to you about Samantha Brown,’ she explained.

  A knowing look flashed onto his face. ‘Yeah, thought you might.’

  Samantha’s name had been plastered all over the press, so he knew the girl was dead. She detected no hint of sadness, regret, nothing.

  ‘Why’s that then?’

  He opened his arms expansively as though it was obvious. ‘Cos I was the love of her life, innit?’

  Oh, the innit. A phrase she despised.

  ‘Allegedly,’ Kim offered, wondering already what the hell Sammy had seen in this guy.

  ‘You dated at college?’

  ‘Dated?’ he guffawed, as though she’d used some ancient term.

  ‘We did a lot of f—’

  ‘I think the answer is yes,’ Bryant interrupted.

  Callum nodded.

  ‘And you were studying what at Dudley College?’ Kim asked, pointedly looking at the trolleys as he pushed his line into a stray one beside a Ford Fiesta.

  ‘Not much,’ he said. ‘Only went so my parents wouldn’t throw me out. And this?’ he said, looking at his trolleys, ‘Just to get me by. I’m claiming Jobseeker’s at a different address so it’s decent until I can get investors for an idea I’ve got.’

  Kim heard the pride in his voice that he was swindling the government. She idly wondered if she had actually shown him her ID.

  ‘Splendid,’ she said. His grand plan was not something she needed to hear. Nor was the admission he was fiddling benefits. A quick call to the benefits office later would soon put paid to that.

  ‘Callum, we’re far more interested in your relationship with Sammy Brown.’

  He looked at his trolleys and beckoned for them to follow him. His charges were left blocking a line of six cars.

  ‘Err… shouldn’t you?…’

  ‘Nah, Bert’ll be out in a minute. He’ll move ’em.’

  He stopped at the side of the building and took a pouch from his jacket pocket.

  He paused. ‘Look, she was a great girl to start with, she was a laugh and sexy as f… well, you know what I mean. We had a lot of fun but then she got all serious. Started pulling a face if I forgot to meet her or if I changed my mind. And other girls…’

  ‘Is it fair to say you had different ideas of how the relationship was?’ Kim asked as politely as she could. This little rodent had used her for sex and strung her along.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I didn’t want the hassle, so I finished it. Never really spoke to her again.’

  ‘And you also knew a guy called Tyler Short?’

  He frowned as he opened the pouch. ‘Nah, didn’t have no mates by that name.’

  Kim took out her phone and scrolled to the photo.

  Kim noted a smile as his eyes first fell on himself.

  ‘This guy,’ she said, tapping the screen.

  He looked closer. The frown dissolved as recognition dawned.

  ‘Oh him, my mate Spuddy knew him. Brought him along a couple of times. Never knew his name.’

  Or bothered to remember it, Kim thought, as Callum opened up his pouch and took out a spliff.

  ‘You do realise we’re police officers?’ Kim queried, just to be sure. So far, he’d admitted to benefit fraud and was now about to light weed right in front of them.

  ‘I figure we’re in deep shit if you ain’t got bigger fish to fry than me, so what you gonna do, innit?’ he asked, lighting the roll-up.

  Before she could stop herself she reached out, whipped the joint from his mouth and stamped it on the ground. She ground it around the tarmac so he wouldn’t be tempted to try and retrieve it.

  ‘What we’re gonna do about it is whip your ass down to the station to discuss in more detail your connection to both these people.’ She paused. ‘Innit?’

  The lad’s eyes were wide as he glanced down at her shoe. She ground it back and forth a few times more to make her point.

  Callum looked up. ‘Hang on. You saying this dude is dead too?’

  She didn’t answer the question.

  ‘So, your recollection any clearer?’ she asked.

  A memory seemed to dawn on him. He rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, the kid kept asking me questions about Sammy. Pathetic it was. Obviously, she didn’t want to know.’

  ‘Because he was younger?’ Kim asked. There was only one year between them.

  ‘Nah, cos she couldn’t stop thinking about me.’

  ‘Of course,’ Kim said. Obviously.

  ‘Had it bad, poor kid, couldn’t take his eyes off her.’ He shook his head with derision. ‘Dopey bastard would have followed her anywhere.’

  Thirty-Two

  ‘You reckon they were both in this cult thingy?’ Bryant asked, after she ended her conversation with Penn. That both of their victims had the same stomach contents was not something she had encountered before unless they had shared the same last meal, which would have been impossible for Sammy and Tyler, as the boy had died weeks before.

  ‘Is the disbelief in your voice at them both being members or that there is actually some kind of cult in Wolverley?’

  ‘Both but probably more the latter,’ he said honestly.

  She couldn’t really offer anything in disagreement.

  Wolverley was a village two miles north of Kidderminster lying on the River Stour. With a population of approximately two thousand people it was usually peaceful with a low crime rate, except f
or a gruesome murder somewhere in the village back in the nineties. She knew the area boasted thirteen listed buildings and caves cut into the sandstone cliffs behind some of the dwellings. Surrounding the sleepy village were rolling fields and wooded areas, and they now knew a place called Unity Farm.

  ‘His face was a picture,’ Bryant said, heading out of Wordsley.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Callum when you ripped the spliff from his mouth. Classic. And the benefits office was very pleased to take my call.’

  ‘It’s been a good day for that lad,’ she agreed. While Bryant had been busy grassing up Callum to the authorities, she had tried to place a second call to Woody, to update him on the shoe found at the lake. The fact that he was unavailable in a quarterly budget meeting did not bode well for the request she was going to be making when she got back to the station.

  ‘He was a bit of a dick, wasn’t he? Should be interesting to see what he comes up with for his whereabouts when Sammy was murdered.’

  ‘Smoking too much of that stuff and he’ll barely remember what he did an hour ago,’ she answered.

  ‘What’s your feeling?’

  She shrugged. ‘He’s not out of the woods yet. I think there’s more to his personality than we’ve seen. Perhaps a quick temper. So, he’s staying on the radar for now.’

  ‘Satnav says we’re a quarter mile away from the destination,’ Bryant said, as the fields either side opened up around them.

  ‘Okay, slow down and…’

  ‘Oh, the irony of you telling me to slow down.’

  She chuckled. She only ever told him to speed up

  ‘There,’ she called out as they passed an open gate with a small brass plate screwed in to the top.

  Bryant steered the car quickly onto the single track road that turned into a dirt path as it rounded a bend that skirted a small wooded area.